agreed. on the radio this morning, they were criticizing the government for not having all the sewage and wreckage cleaned up like 3 days after it happened.

Pepper. We're too busy doing all this overseas s**t. We SHOULD have a plan, but your tone is all wrong. "You are all up in another country's grill and now it's your fault that a hurricane hit." that's what it sounds like to me. and YES we need financial help, have you seen the value of the dollar lately?

Anyway, lots of brits were against our "war on terrorism" but then when they got hit, it was a new perspective for them, maybe holland just needs a wake-up call.[/quote]

You're kidding with this last part, right? When we got hit all through the 20th century with Northern Ireland related terrorism we had perspective. Going into Iraq on false pretences has only served to exacerbate tensions between Muslims and other citizens of the UK - and has no doubt played a huge role in fundamentalist imams recruitment campaigns across the cities of the UK.

Also i'd like to point out about the lack of aid recieved from other countries - President Bush from the outset made allusions to the idea that the USA didn't want help, just sympathy. How stupid is that?

Perhaps if the national government had better policies toward oil pricing, international relations and government spending, New Orleans could have been better prepared for a circumstance like this. Spending on levees and other water management programs has steadily declined down to a meagre $10m, as funds are diverted away to other more "important" programs - eg the pursuit of democracy in the Middle East, weapons development and the vastly overinflated and the essentially useless Homeland Security department.

The issue is not of how fast the state can get New Orleans and other affected areas back on their feet, it's asking why there was no forethought for this situation happening, particularly developing strategies for evacuation and rehoming of displaced peoples.

The development of lawlessness and desperation is a huge pointer too, for how the social fabric of the USA (and a handful of other heavily Westernised countries, see Parisian fires) is essentially flawed and only takes a knock to unwind and develop into anarchy. I noted with interest on another forum that someone highlighted two pictures of looters - one was of black people (over 65% of the populous of New Orleans, btw) who were labelled as looting (TV's etc). Another picture showed some white people taking food and groceries, ie looting - no? They were "lucky enough to find food". Paraphrased, but the point remains.

agreed. on the radio this morning, they were criticizing the government for not having all the sewage and wreckage cleaned up like 3 days after it happened.

Pepper. We're too busy doing all this overseas s**t. We SHOULD have a plan, but your tone is all wrong. "You are all up in another country's grill and now it's your fault that a hurricane hit." that's what it sounds like to me. and YES we need financial help, have you seen the value of the dollar lately?

Anyway, lots of brits were against our "war on terrorism" but then when they got hit, it was a new perspective for them, maybe holland just needs a wake-up call.